


Bexley Belinda and the Letter

by rather_live_in_their_world_writer



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Bexley Belinda's Cafe, Darcy Lewis is Tony Stark's Daughter, Darcy Lewis's Mom - Freeform, F/M, Rewrite, Soulmate AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-04
Updated: 2018-02-19
Packaged: 2019-02-10 10:57:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12910491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rather_live_in_their_world_writer/pseuds/rather_live_in_their_world_writer
Summary: "I'm leaving."Bexley Lewis wrote and burned a letter to her soulmate and father of her child, Tony Stark, every year on the anniversary of the day she left and didn't look back, explaining everything. She didn't expect that her daughter would send it. Or that he would read it. But life really liked to do the unexpected.*Rewrite of my story 'Bexley Belinda and the Polaroid Pictures' (http://archiveofourown.org/works/5418404).*





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Rewrite of my story 'Bexley Belinda and the Polaroid Pictures' (http://archiveofourown.org/works/5418404).

**_September 2nd, 1989. Malibu, California_ **

Silence followed her words, it hung in the air between the two teenagers marked by fate with the signature of the other on their skin- two people promised to love each other forever. The girl- whose dark blonde hair hung limply down to her shoulders, her wide blue eyes filled with glass like tears that dripped silently onto her pale cheeks. Behind her tears, those warm violet blue eyes were hardened to icy grey in a hard resolve. The boy who played to be a man- with bags under his sharp brown eyes, brown hair still styled flawlessly from the party he came home from before, his hand clenched around a ring box inside his pocket, breath held in the silence as his soulmate looked onto to him with determination that he had once admired- he had no idea it would break him so completely, seeing it in her eyes, paired with those damning words. “Bexley, please…” her name fell past his lips, his beautiful voice cracking under pressure of his desperation. “I can change.  _ Please _ .” 

“I’m leaving,” she whispered, repeating the words that were breaking them both, the ones she rehearsed in front of the mirror with the script branded onto her brain. The ones forced into her mouth by a heavy hand. “Don’t try to find me, Anthony.  _ I- _ ” There are so many words she wanted to say, (‘l’m pregnant,’ ‘I love you,’ ‘I’ll stay.’) but only one phrase was permitted. “I don’t want to be found.” All he could do was stare helplessly as she turned away, clenching her shaking hands, taking the pieces of his shattered heart with her as she walked away. 

“ _ Bexley- _ ” 

A heavy hand lands on the boy’s shoulder, the older man’s words echoing inside the teenager’s head as he thought of every mistake he made- all the ones that he thought drove her away.

“It’s good she’s gone, Tony. She was in the way.” 

‘But,’ he thought, brilliant mind numb with the shock of agony that was his broken heart and mourning soul, ‘she was the only way.’


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darcy finds a letter.

**_September 2nd, 2001. New York City, New York_ **

Now, Darcy had never really thought of her mom as old, but right then, her beautiful mother really looked it. No offense. The eleven year old watched her mom from her corner of  _ Bexley Belinda’s Cafe _ with narrowed violet grey eyes. Everything could be considered normal to an _ outsider _ , (like that guy Mark who always hit on mom- gross) as Bexley was as friendly and smiley as always. But Darcy was no outsider, and knew something was wrong with the woman she got her big lips, developing curves, and sass, from. There was more concealer under her eyes than usual (Darcy could tell because it was lighter than it normally was, more creased from the extra powder used to set it) and her eyes were a bit red (God, it was horrible to imagine her mother crying- it made Darcy want to throw up and cry, too, apologizing vehemently for whatever she did wrong) (Unknown to Darcy, her father felt the same way), but she wasn’t sick, cause Mama Lewis would have been in bed, as she never worked when she was sick. (Bexley often told a story to anyone who would listen about what happened when one worked sick at a busy cafe, ‘Everyone came in the next day with red noses, glaring at me!’)

The brunette eleven year old watched her mom go back into the kitchens to get the seasonal cookies from the oven and had to force herself not to follow to snag one when her mother pretended to look away, and with a quick decision, the brunette girl sprinted upstairs to the small apartment above the thriving cafe. Darcy stopped in the doorway of her mom’s bedroom that was it’s usual organized mess, squinting her blue violet eyes, before slowly and sneakily tip toeing in, on the lookout for anything amiss. Her eyes scanned her mom’s neat bedroom, and almost immediately her eyes found an unsealed envelope on her mom’s desk, which she usually reserved for business stuff. But this didn’t look like business, as it wasn’t a typed address on the front, rather, it was handwritten in her mother’s loopy cursive Darcy (and someone else) would recognize anywhere. Darcy bit her plump lip, before picking up the letter, and examining it closely. 

 

‘Anthony Edward Stark 

10880 Malibu Point, 

Malibu, Calif., 90265’

 

What the heck? Why would her mom be sending the CEO of Stark Industries a letter? Darcy bit her plump lower lip, narrowing her eyes in contemplation. She could leave it, and not get into trouble, or… She could figure out why her mom always got so glum around this time of year. Darcy was pretty sure it wasn’t seasonable depression, but if she really wanted to know… Well, Darcy Maria Lewis had a pretty good idea the answer was in this mysterious, unsealed envelope to a playboy billionaire her mom hadn’t ever mentioned before. And besides, it’s not like her mom would find out, as long as Darcy was sneaky about it. 

Decision made, Darcy carefully took the printer paper out of the envelope, and took a deep breath before opening it. ‘Tony,’ it read, right next to a curious mark that almost looked like a tear stain. 

 

‘I have many regrets. And you, my dear soulmate, are involved in a lot of them. To be fair, let’s start before I met you. I was ten, when my mom and stepdad died. And as you know, as I confessed to you the night after you lost your own parents, I had a fight with them that went unresolved. I remember that I was so angry at them because they were leaving me with a babysitter while they went on their anniversary date, when I thought I could stay home by myself. I refused to say ‘I love you,’ back to them when they said it to me for the last time, and I regret it. I would go on to live with my grandmother and uncle, who liked to push me around when he was drunk, and while I sat alone in the closet sized room I called my own, while my uncle went out to the bar and my grandmother sat on the porch with her hellish dog, smoking like a chimney, I store at the walls for hours on end, and felt the regret rush through me. I thought then, that that was going to be the biggest regret of my life. 

‘I was wrong.

‘There were a few more small ones on the way to meeting the man who would speak the words, ‘Got any coffee that isn’t shit?’ to which I would reply, ‘No, guess you’ll just have to get used to my shit coffee, bub.’ We weren’t the most eloquent pair, were we, Tony? But back to the point, I regretted the fact that I had called you ‘bub,’ a habit I picked up from my mother’s few and far between stories of my biological dad, who didn’t know I existed. 

‘History really does repeat itself, Tony.

‘At least, to an extent. I never married. I couldn’t. No matter if Darcy really needed a father figure, no matter how cold I am when our daughter doesn’t sleep beside me. When she does, I find myself staring at her features, and picking out the ones that are your’s. She’s got your nose, and stubborn jaw. She’s beautiful, and when she smiles at me, I think of you and I regret the fact that I am too much a coward to tell you this to your face. Instead, I tell you this in a letter I’ll burn tomorrow night, like I do every year on this date. 

‘I don’t tell her the stories of us. She doesn’t know that her mother’s soulmate is a billionaire, and when she asks for something right out of our budget, I regret the fact that I can’t give her everything she deserves. And I think of the fact that she would be living like a princess in a castle if he didn’t find out about her before you did. 

‘Obadiah Stane threatened to kill our baby girl. He threatened to kill me and hide her away for the day she’s useful, and I ran. And I don’t regret I did, no, I will never regret putting her before us. But I regret that I didn’t bring you with me. I regret the fact that we didn’t run away together like we always planned to. That I didn’t steal you away in the night. That you don’t own a mechanic shop and that I don’t see you stained with grease everyday, threatening you to wash your damn hands before coming to the dinner table,  _ or else _ . 

‘But I don’t like getting caught up in fantasies of what could have been when I have what is. Darcy. Darcy Maria Lewis. A girl with a stubborn streak a mile wide and a smile just as big. She’s brilliant, but not in the way you are. She’s observant, she’s clever, and I’m pretty sure she’s snuck more blueberry muffins than I can count from right under my nose. She’s got my sweet tooth, but cannot bake or cook worth a damn, just like you. I let her do the coffee, cause you sure as hell know I’m horrible at it. She’s got two soulmarks, and as soon as I saw them on her forearms when I changed her for the first time, I knew that even with two people, she would be too much to handle, in the greatest way possible. She likes figuring out ways to make our lives easier. She schedules everything. I can’t sneeze without it being right on time, it’s damn scary, that’s for sure. But I love it. She’s special, and I know you’d love her. 

‘I hope one day you meet her. Because she is my everything, and I know she is yours, too. You just don’t know it yet. 

‘I miss you more everyday, 

Bexley B. Lewis’ 

 

Darcy sat, shocked still and silent. Darcy had always wondered. She’d always wondered if her mother had met her soulmate. She’d wondered why she was always so melancholy when she saw the two marks gracing Darcy’s forearms. And now, she knew. And really didn’t know how to feel about it. Tony Stark?  _ Really _ ? 

Darcy knew her mom had lived in Malibu for a while, and before that, South Carolina, before she got pregnant and moved to New York to live with an old friend of her’s, Darcy’s godmother Jennifer Walters- or Aunt Jen. Aunt Jen made Darcy want to become a lawyer and protect the innocent from the bullies that abused them, and Darcy knew her mother had been saving every penny she could to send Darcy to college, refusing to let Darcy get a part time job, adamant that she shouldn’t have to. “I’m the parent. It’s my job, DeeDee.”

Darcy thought of all the Christmases when her mother looked so sad, all the birthdays that Bexley had always put so much work into. “You deserve the best, DeeDee,” she would say, stroking back Darcy’s brunette locks, a sad look on her face. She’d lean down and drop a kiss to her forehead. “I just wish I could give it to you.” 

No matter how many times Darcy had told her she was happy, that she was satisfied, her mom always pinched her lips and worked herself harder. It had taken a lot to make Bexley not open the cafe twenty-four hours. Darcy bit her lip as she stared down at her mother’s loopy cursive. Her mother hurt more everyday she denied the soulmate connection. She was already weary from the decade disconnection, and she would only get wearier. Darcy came to a decision, and prayed it was the right one. 

She grabbed the letter and went to her mother’s copier machine, and copied it and the envelope. She tucked the copied letter inside a new envelope and traced her mother’s handwriting onto the envelope, adding their return address, a stamp, and a little note for her father on the inside. She replaced the actual letter onto her mother’s desktop and snuck down the stairs, waving to Mr. Phil, another regular who thankfully didn’t flirt with her mom, and to the blue mailbox just outside. 

The brunette girl took in a shaky breath, and pushed the letter into the slot, letting it drop in. Now, she would see what would happen. Hopefully it was good.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A letter is delivered. Probably just fan mail... right?
> 
> Well, no.

**Chapter 2:** **_September 23rd, 2001, Malibu California_ **

Anthony Edward Stark was an  _ actor. _ It wasn’t what he was famous  _ or _ infamous for, but it was what he was. He had a charming, plastic smile that didn’t quite warm his brown eyes enough to be anything but fake, it was only to get the point of his script across- he was handsome, he was sexy, he was smarter and richer than you and had everything out on the surface for the world to see. (What they wanted to see, anyway). 

He played a part. Method acting taken a bit too far, honestly. He played his part so well most people would assume that was who he was. (Most people not including a woman with soft blue-violet eyes that saw through every layer of fake he hid behind) He was a playboy. An empty, frivolous man with shallow tendencies and a heart that would never long for the women that slept by his side. Even for just one night. (Oh, but he longed for her. Her with her tangled strands of gold that lit up like sunshine in the Malibu sun with the top down and music on high but still unable to drown out the sound of her uproarious, musical laughter that echoed in his head still. He longed for her warmth by his side, for her gap-toothed smile, for the scent of fresh baked cookies on her tanned skin.)

Tony Stark was an actor- but sometimes, when he thought he was alone, the real man within shown through the suffocatingly charming plastic exterior. Rhodey, Tony knew, had seen him- that version. He was his best friend, and had actually been there when the two soulmates had met, so it wasn’t a reason to wonder- but -much to his embarrassment, but oddly enough, not his regret- Pepper had seen that man underneath, too. The removable skin graft laid over his rough palm concealed the bits of Bexley that were a part of him that he didn’t want to share with the world, but he couldn’t work with delicate details with it on. So he had taken it off, and had ignored those soft, curling black letters that claimed the rough palm she used to hold in her smaller, flour soft hands with the occasional burn from temperamental espresso machines and baking sheets- though they usually healed pretty quick. Those hands he used to rub the knuckles of when she complained that they ached. The same hands that had held his heart so carefully once he gave it to her. The hands that held it still. 

Pepper had caught him stroking a calloused finger over the words, her grey eyes trying and failing to look away from the loopy words claiming most of his palm. “Who was she?” He winced and slanted his head towards Pepper Potts, his assistant of three years. Wasn’t it sad that soon, his relationship with Pepper would surpass the length of his relationship with his soulmate? 

In that moment of weakness, Tony had told her. “Everything.” 

 

He sat at his kitchen counter then with a (too good) cup of coffee, on September 23rd, having finally escaped his long mourning weeks that happened every year since that fateful day twelve years, twenty days, and (he glanced at his watch, 10:03 am, huh, he was up early) ten hours ago, unaware of a letter in the hands of his harried assistant, who was hurrying into the room. Unaware of the change that letter would bring. 

“Mr. Stark,” Pepper called from across the room, looking uncharacteristically disheveled. She had an envelope in a visibly shaking hand, and his interest was piqued. What could literally shake the unmoving stone mountain that was Pepper Pott’s perfection? (‘Too perfect,’ his mind whispered, swirling visions of tangled blonde hair and full curves under his rough hands shining in his eyes for a moment.) He raises an eyebrow. 

“Miss Potts, what’s got your panties in a twist this fine morning?” he asks as he raises his coffee to take a loud slurping sip that grates on  _ his _ nerves in his attempt at trying to rile her up (and prove himself right that she would leave like every good thing in his life). She doesn’t even twitch, only places a letter in his hands quite forcibly, making his flinch as it rubbed against the mark on his palm that burned whenever it touched someone else’s skin without a graft on it. It might’ve been in his head, but it did. 

“You know I don’t like being handed things,” he said, not looking at the letter in his hands, somehow knowing it would change everything if he looked down. So, in the way of a man who has laid stagnant in the same ways of womanizing and drinking for a decade, who clearly doesn’t quite like change, he continues to look at Pepper instead, who huffs slightly, nodding her head towards the letter. 

“Read it. Look at it. Just- I saw it, and I had to see if- just read it okay?” the ineffable Miss Pott’s rambled incoherently. He wanted to tease her more, but something about the look in her grey eyes made him sigh and look down and  _ freeze _ . He doesn’t think that his name had ever looked more beautiful than it was written in that curling, messy hand he’d seen on his own skin and recipe cards and on the back of the polaroid picture in his wallet- dating it April 23rd, 1988, with his sprawling mess following it ‘The Future Mrs. Tony Stark,’ the fading photo showing the perfection that was her with the sun making a halo of blonde hair and those wide eyes staring at him, her head tilted to the side as she gazed at him when she snuck in his window the night before- not because her uncle was being a dick or her grandmother’s hellhound had scared her- no. Because she had wanted to, she had used the key she had half-stolen and he had all the way given to sneak past his parent’s room and Jarvis’s midnight watch in the old mansion and into his bed, seeking his warmth. He hadn’t woken when she snuck in, but when he did it was to the heaven that was the smell of freshly baked cookies and powder and vanilla and the beach and everything good in the world. 

“Where did you get this?” he asked, voice low and numb as the pain raced up his arm like a heart attack. 

“It just came in- it looks like it came a long way. And I- I recognized the handwriting from- well- and I just- I wanted to make sure.” Tony nodded dumbly, still in shock as he looked down at the letter with a return address written in an unfamiliar girlish slant. 

“Could you-?” Pepper blinked then nodded. 

“Of course, just- call me if you need anything, Ton- Mr. Stark.” She nodded cordially and straightened her shoulders as she walked away, ponytail of strawberry blonde locks swishing as she exited. Tony stared down at the envelope in his hand, felt the burning of his palm before he took in a deep breathe when the jittery feeling under his skin felt almost unbearable. He took care to spare the envelope, especially the girlish return address he noted was in New York City. Too soon, he was holding a folded piece of paper in his hand. He took in a deep breath as he unfolded it, before it quickly fled his lungs as his eyes went to the signature marking the bottom of the page. ‘Bexley B. Lewis,’ it said. ‘Tony,’ it read. 

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave a comment and a kudos if you like! I really appreciate the support!


End file.
